What are the best mobile design practices for faster load times?

1 Optimize your assets

One of the main factors that affect load times is the size and quality of your images, videos, fonts, and other assets. To optimize your assets, you should use appropriate formats, compression, and resolution for each device and screen size. For example, you can use WebP or JPEG 2000 for images, MP4 or WebM for videos, and WOFF2 for fonts. You should also use lazy loading, which means loading only the assets that are visible or needed on the current screen, and deferring the rest until they are requested by the user.

2 Use responsive design

Responsive design is a technique that allows your app or website to adapt to different screen sizes, orientations, and resolutions, without compromising the layout, functionality, or quality. Responsive design can help you reduce the amount of code, assets, and requests that you need to load for each device, and improve the user experience across different platforms. To implement responsive design, you should use flexible grids, media queries, and relative units for your layout, and follow the mobile-first approach, which means designing for the smallest screen first and then scaling up for larger ones.

3 Improve usability and accessibility

Usability and accessibility are essential for mobile design, as they influence how users interact with your app or website and their perception of its speed and performance. To improve usability and accessibility, you should use clear and concise content, appropriate font sizes, colors, and contrasts, and provide visual feedback such as loading indicators or animations. Additionally, make sure to use touch-friendly elements that are large enough and spaced enough for easy tapping and swiping. Lastly, follow the platform-specific guidelines and conventions, such as the iOS Human Interface Guidelines or the Android Material Design Guidelines, to ensure consistency with user expectations and preferences.

4 Test and measure your performance

The last but not least practice for faster load times is to test and measure your performance regularly and systematically, using various tools and methods. Testing and measuring your performance can help you identify and fix any issues or bottlenecks that may affect your loading speed, and to optimize your app or website accordingly. To do this, you can use online tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, or WebPageTest, which can analyze your app or website's performance on different metrics, such as loading time, speed index, or time to interactive. Additionally, browser tools like Chrome DevTools or Firefox Developer Tools let you inspect your app or website's code, assets, and requests, while also simulating different devices, networks, and conditions. Lastly, real user monitoring (RUM) collects and analyzes data from actual users to gain insights on their device type, browser, location, connection speed, loading time, bounce rate, and more. By following these best mobile design practices for faster load times, you can create an app or website that is not only fast and efficient but also attractive and engaging for your users.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?